Behind the balance sheet uses cookies to enhance your experience...

Cookies are small text files that are safely stored on your computer. They allow websites to do clever things like remember if you’ve asked to stay logged in or what you have in your shopping cart. We also use cookies to find out how people use this website so that we can make it even better in future.

These cookies don’t contain any personal or sensitive information and are only used by Behind the balance sheet and our trusted partners such as Facebook and Google.
By continuing to use this site, you agree that we may store and access cookies on your device. Find out more and set your preferences here.

Category

Blog

The chart shows the share price trend of the South Sea Company, with the famous South Sea Bubble popping in 1720, and being the first of countless such scams in global stock markets. As Edwin Lefèvre points out in the wonderful book Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, “Nowhere does history indulge in repetitions so often or so uniformly as in Wall Street. When you read contemporary accounts of booms or panics the one thing that strikes you most forcibly is how little either stock...

Last week was a busy week for corporate governance experts, as they were trotted out to talk about three equity price plunges in Hong Kong and a fourth in London. Of Goldin, the apparently well-known financial services, property, polo and wine conglomerate, with two quoted arms, I know little, but the combination would have made little sense, even to James Hanson. Last week’s events in London at Plus500 reminded me of Refco, and that did not end well; it requires a longer write-up, and I...

The FT’s lead article yesterday is a misinterpretation of the position, in my view.

“Saudi Arabia claims it has the upper hand in the battle for oil dominance. One of its officials told the FT its strategy of squeezing high-cost rivals by boosting production in order to lower prices is paying off: "There is no doubt about it, the price fall of the last several months has deterred investors away from expensive oil including US shale, deep offshore and heavy oils".